


Blood in the (Laundry) Water

by Weywyrdsis (AlorevFritz)



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Blood, Deadpool Laundromat scene ripoff -but with lesbians, F/F, Female Pronouns for Grell Sutcliff, Fluff and Humor, It's dried blood and no one gets murdered, Modern AU, i guess?, preemptive character tagging, sapphic sutcliff week, well maybe someone did but not In the story anyways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 13:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20292571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlorevFritz/pseuds/Weywyrdsis
Summary: She was next to Grell a moment later, leaning over to fill the machine. Grell was, unfortunately, very aware that her laundry day attire was not exactly the best for meeting people in.Especially not very pretty women who were dressed like they did not wait until they were completely out of clothes to do their laundry. Grell's own outfit was not at all well put together, a loose skirt with fantastically deep pockets and the oldest crop top she owned.In her own defence, it had lasted this long because it was a very cute, soft crop top. Did not exactly match her skirt though. Or the mismatched socks poking out of her shoes. That was usually a good look but not exactly in neon pink and soft green.And goodness was the woman pretty, Grell couldn't help but glance back at her as she stood up and set her machine to the needed settings. Lovely dark red, nearly purple hair had been pulled into pigtails and large brown eyes beneath her glasses. Grell tried not to stare, it really wasn't fair to ogle other women while they did their laundry.





	Blood in the (Laundry) Water

**Author's Note:**

> I saw the Blood prompt and could have written something angsty but instead, I...wrote this. Which is really just the lesbian version the Deadpool laundry scene thing tbh.

Grell kicked the door shut with a side of her foot, giving it a second kick when it didn't quite latch on the first try with her toe and a huffy breath. A scarf and two socks tilted directly out of the laundry basket and Grell stared at the items for a few moments. She hitched the laundry basket up higher on her hip, leaned down and tossed the wayward items back in.

The challenge of keeping clothes in the hamper as she trotted down the hallway was probably not helped by the plastic bag on top of most of the clothes. The top layer of things she'd found scattered about her apartment had gotten tossed on top. They were not exactly keen to stay on top of plastic apparently.

The elevator ride was at least a moment of her laundry staying in the hamper. Until it shuddered to a stop and another five items when flopping into the floor, she did not have a moment to stare disapprovingly at them, scooping them up while struggling not to drop the rest of her laundry before the elevator doors closed on her halfway out.

She was tromping more than trotting now, tossing her hamper on a counter. The plastic bag was tossed into one of the sinks, and she stared at it as if it could possibly open, wash and dry itself. Maybe fold and put itself away too. Wouldn't a maid be nice...

Finally, she just sighed, pulled gloves out of the pocket of her skirt and snapped them on. It certainly wouldn't do to ruin what was a very good manicure with cleaners and scrubbing. She ripped the bag open, upended it into the sink and flicked on the tap to hot water. The sink started to fill to Grell's bouncing foot and tapping fingers. She stared at it while it filled up a quarter way, then tossed in some soap and grabbed her hamper.

About half of it went into one machine, half in the other. If only because she didn't really want to make all of her whites pink. Again. For the fourth time. Sebastian had gotten a few good drags in on those...multiple occasions.

"Uh, is this yours?" 

Grell whipped around, catching the tilting detergent before it could spill. "Huh? Oh! Yes! Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Thank you."

There was a woman standing next to her sink of clothes, approximately 30 seconds from spilling over on the floor. She had, kindly enough, turned the water off.

The woman shrugged, taking her own hamper of clothes to the machines. "It's alright. No problem."

She was next to Grell a moment later, leaning over to fill the machine. Grell was, unfortunately, very aware that her laundry day attire was not exactly the best for meeting people in.

Especially not very pretty women who were dressed like they did not wait until they were completely out of clothes to do their laundry. Grell's own outfit was not at all well put together, a loose skirt with fantastically deep pockets and the oldest crop top she owned.

In her own defence, it had lasted this long because it was a very cute, soft crop top. Did not exactly match her skirt though. Or the mismatched socks poking out of her shoes. That was usually a good look but not exactly in neon pink and soft green.

And goodness was the woman pretty, Grell couldn't help but glance back at her as she stood up and set her machine to the needed settings. Lovely dark red, nearly purple hair had been pulled into pigtails and large brown eyes beneath her glasses. Grell tried not to stare, it really wasn't fair to ogle other women while they did their laundry.

She went back to her sink of laundry, lifting up the first shirt from the sink. She poured more soap on it and began scrubbing, and scrubbing, and scrubbing.

"Excuse me miss; I think your laundry is finished..." The same voice interrupted her again, and Grell swore.

"Sorry. Not you. Just a rough day." She ambled over, switching out her laundry, and the woman laughed.

"Understandable. You know a little bit of baking soda will help with that blood. I have some if you want." The woman tossed in her second, well-separated load. She offered the box to Grell. "It might not fix the whole stain but if you run it through the laundry after that should get it completely out or mostly anyways."

Grell took it slowly, biting at her bottom lip. "I...thanks. Sorry, I promise it's not like..."

"Don't worry about it." The woman laughed. 

She went back to her scrubbing.

///

Mey-rin slipped down to the laundry room after work, pockets jingling with change. She hopped the elevator, deciding heavily against risking tripping directly down the stairs.

"Oh." She scooted to the side as the other woman did, both of them pressed to opposite sides of the elevator. "Hello."

"Hi!" 

Mey hadn't seen the woman the last few times she'd taken the laundry down. Although comparing their piles, it could be assumed the other woman did all of her laundry at the exact same time. Mey-rin had done the same until she had accidentally overloaded the machines and kind of halfway broken one. So she had set aside time once a week after that. The building manager had not yet figured out that she had been the one to break it, thank goodness. Plus, if she took Baldroy’s laundry with her, he did the dishes for her, which was a better arrangement for everyone involved, considering how many plates she’d dropped.

"I'm Grell, by the way. 714."

"Mey-rin, I'm in 402."

"It's nice to meet you, Mey-rin." Grell grinned, offering a hand from underneath her hamper. Mey moved hers to balance on a hip and shook the other woman's hand. Her fingernails, in a very lovely shade of red, matched her smiling lipstick. It was very cute. Mey wasn’t quite sure which one to look at, and Grell’s almost mint green eyes were also lovely and intimidating to look at.

"You too. Did the baking soda work?"

"Oh, ya! The bigger stains are still there but almost completely faded so hopefully another wash..." Grell hitched up her hamper, motioning for Mey to slid out of the elevator first.

"Try some lemon juice on them and some cold water after." Mey led the way, plopping her things on top of one of the machines. Grell went for the sinks first, and Mey looked over curiously. "Are those stains fresh?"

Grell paused like a cat caught playing with a yarn ball. Her bottom lip moved into an almost pout. "Uh...some...of them..."

"Run those under cold water right away; it should help. Then the baking soda. The older stains will need hot water."

The last of the clothing in the bag she'd opened dropped into the sink. "Oh. Thanks. You're brilliant."

Mey laughed, sorting out her items and tossing them in as Grell ran water and scrubbed at the fresh stains with gloved hands. "I work as a cleaner. I know a few tricks."

"Oh, that explains the life hacks." Grell grinned her, talking with her hands even as she scrubbed. "Do you do residential or commercial?"

"Residential cleaning. I do about four or five houses a day. Usually, I do each place once a week or twice a week, depending on the client." Mey went to insert coins, and Grell snorted. At first, Mey thought it a commentary until Grell waved at her vaguely for her attention.

"Oh, honey, don't waste your change. Hang on." Grell refilled her sink with hot water and let her clothes soak. "So you just gotta block the camera with your body..."

She winked, pulling out a bag of what looked like very thin straws. She slid them into the slots, pushed it in, started the wash cycle and pulled the straws back out as the washer started. "Don't rat me out."

"When was the last time you paid for laundry?"

"Oh, so long hun. It's all a ridiculous cash grab considering how much rent and utilities already are. Also, because I end up doing quite a bit of laundry, I have enough that I have to pay dry cleaning for, I’m not paying for regular laundry too." Grell winked again, and Mey flushed, ducking her head a little as the other woman bumped her hip gently with her own. 

Mey laughed softly as Grell repeated the trick with her own wash. "What do you use?"

"You know those q-tips with plastic middle things, whatever they're called...? Take the cotton off the ends, and those work perfectly for it. Or extremely thin straws. Anything coin width, long and kind of stiff." Grell leaned against the washer. Mey turned to face her a little as she spoke. "As long as your back blocks the security camera they don't know. There's no sound on those things, they're cheap."

"And here I thought I was the one with strange laundry knowledge."

Grell laughed, long red hair tossed back as she did. "My job involves working with the police sometimes. We get invited out for drinks with them occasionally and learn all sorts of oddball stuff."

Mey felt her brows shot up past her glasses into her hairline. Well, maybe not quite that far, but it felt appropriate if it had for her amount of concern. "I'm a little worried to hear what you do for a living."

Grell shifted from foot to foot awkwardly, leaving heel impressions in the carpet. "I uh...work in a morgue. I'm the resident desairologist and one of our coroners, although Will does most of the autopsies."

"A...what? Sorry, I know what a coroner is but uh…"

"Desairologist." Grell had flushed a little, twirling her hair with a finger. "Basically, I prepare the deceased for viewings. Makeup, hair, that sort of thing."

"I didn't realize that was a specific job." Mey turned to switch her laundry and Grell seemed to take that with a measure of relief, changing over her own. 

"It isn't always. Some morgues just have coroners or assistants who do it. I had my cosmetology license before I got into the coroner thing, so it is my technical title."

"So the blood on the clothes…?" Mey giggled a little, nudging Grell with her elbow. "Don't tell me accidents happen."

"...I won't then." She pouted for a moment before laughing. "Bodies are messy sometimes, that's just how it is. And I'm not necessarily the er...most cautious person at our morgue…not as bad as Knox, but he’s new and...easily distracted."

Mey laughed with her. "Good, because you know, after the second time a girl starts to worry."

"I promise I just prepare bodies. I don't create them." It was the third time Grell had winked at her that day. Mey was beginning to like the way she winked. Her nose crinkled a little, a laugh on her lips. It was altogether too cute.

///

Grell had tried to dress a little bit nicer when she took her laundry down the next three times. Just in case. It would hardly do to make Mey think she always dressed like that as if she’d gotten dressed in a closet that wasn’t her own while in the dark. She tried to make sure she was doing it Thursdays, in the hopes she could catch Mey again. She had not succeeded as of yet. She hadn't yet figured out if she had just missed the other woman's schedule, or whether she'd scared Mey off and she was doing laundry a different day.

If she had scared Mey off, it wouldn't do to focus on that. At least she wasn't running out of clothes completely before laundry when she washed them once a week. She was also having much better luck cleaning out blood stains while they were fresh. Even if she never saw the other woman again, at least she’d gotten something out of their impromptu laundry meetings.

She had begun to lose hope by this point, however. At least up until she was bent over one of the machines and a voice called from the door.

"Oh. Afternoon Grell!" 

It took a very quick movement to the left to avoid smacking her head on the door of the laundry, which left her probably looking like a particularly jerky puppet with a novice puppetmaster. But that was significantly more graceful looking than slamming her head into the machine with all the force in her body and giving herself a concussion. That would hardly have been a good look in front of Mey. "Mey! Hi!"

Mey waved a little as she sauntered over. "I have something for you, but I was out of town last week and didn't catch you."

"Oh?" Grell moved forward a little, closing the distance, so Mey had entered her personal space. Mey didn't pull away. 

"Ya." She grabbed a bottle from her hamper. "It's an industrial stain remover, meant for blood. Lemme know when you need more, I can get it through work."

Grell laughed for a solid minute. "Thank you! Don't you know how to treat a lady."

Mey flushed, turning to fill up the laundry. "Speaking of which-"

Grell heard the words even as she steamrolled Mey. It wasn’t that she was trying to interrupt, but the words were practically tying up her tongue as they rushed to get out. "Listen, would you like to- sorry you were saying?'

"No, no, go ahead."

"No, please."

"Really, it can wait, go ahead."

"Would you like to go out for dinner sometime? Or something? Anything, really."

Mey was silent for a minute before letting out a hearty sigh. "Oh, thank god. I...yes. Yes, I would love to I was...trying to figure out how to ask you."

Grell giggled and nudged Mey with her hip as she went by. "Problem solved darling. How does Saturday night sound? I'll pick you up."

"Meaning you'll come down to my apartment? Say 6?"

"Yes, it does. I'll be there, love."


End file.
